Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @05:48AM
from the arrr-me-hearties dept.

dartttt writes "Indie game company tinyBuild Games, who released a platformer called No Time To Explain recently, uploaded their own game to the Pirate Bay. However, there's a key difference between the game they uploaded and the version you can purchase: the game characters wear pirate hats, and everything else has a pirate theme. One of the company's founders, Alex Nichiporchik, said, '[S]ome people are going to torrent it either way, we might as well make something funny out of it. ... You can’t really stop piracy, all you can do is make it work for you and/or provide something that people actually want to pay for. For us this is humor, we like making people laugh.'"

The fact that they uploaded it *DEFINITELY* gives people permission to copy the version that they uploaded.

Such permission does not extend into perpetuity however... they still retain the copyright, whether or not they freely distribute it, and they are also free to revoke such permission at any time. Reasonably, it should only be construed that as long as they are seeding the torrent, they are granting permission to download it. However, one could probably make a reasonable case that one was not awa

It's quite difficult to download a popular torrent without also uploading. You'd need a hacked client in order to be able to achieve it, and most such clients get blacklisted by trackers when they're discovered.

It depends on where you live, really... but knowingly downloading illegally copied copyrighted material really ought to be (IMO) in roughly the same category of severity of crime as knowingly possessing stolen property (I'm not saying that copyright infringement is theft here, by the way).

So, if you configure your torrenting client to only connect to official tinyBuild seeders, and to not seed to anyone, then as you download it no one breaks the law. Of course that defeats the purpose of the BitTorrent protocol, but whatever.

Since they uploaded it, it's a legal download, but my WISP is using some weak-sauce tech that they described as "running out of frames" when people torrent. I don't know what they meant by that really. I know what a frame is, but it sounds specious to me.

Presumably by referring the user to official information [blizzard.com]: "In the event of such a restriction, you may be redirected to a direct download. Due to the nature of direct downloads, you may experience a slow transfer if redirected in this way."

they described as "running out of frames" when people torrent. I don't know what they meant by that really.

Allow me to translate: we haven't paid for enough bandwidth to cope with the demands of all of our clients. We'll use word "frames" here to refer to data transfer capacity as it will confuse most people and they won't realise it's because we're cheapskate bastards. A minority of our clients use bittorrent, but use a large proportion of our available bandwidth to do so. By blocking bittorrent, we have enough bandwidth for the rest of our clients.

Allow me to translate: we haven't paid for enough bandwidth to cope with the demands of all of our clients.

How does one increase the bandwidth on a wireless frequency exactly? The reason that the WISP can't cope is that it is sharing a frequency among many people, there is no way to increase the bandwidth of the frequency.

To make that true, you need to add "without also changing the protocol used." The speed of information exchange depends directly on the protocol. For a trivial example, consider modems over phone lines. By changing the protocol used (and negotiating up/down to a mutually understood protocol), various information exchange speeds (300, 1200, 9600, 19200, etc) are achieved.

So, you want the WISP to force all their customers into upgrading their equipment? Or do you expect them to do it like the cell phone companies and spend a few billion on more spectrum to roll out a new system, then reclaim the old spectrum?

Eventually you run into the Shannon limit, the maximum amount of information that can be sent over a channel with a given bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio. For example, good luck exceeding 56000 bps on a POTS (telephone) channel.

No such thing is available where I live. In theory I could put up a private point to point link to someplace where I could get real access, but I don't know anyone to whom I have LoS.

I want to try the game before I buy it. I think most games aren't worth the money. I simply will not buy a game without trying it any more. Not only do I not have the disposable income, but it's a stupid way to buy games.

Anywhere outside the reach of cable Internet and DSL Internet, which by now mostly includes rural areas. "WISP" stands for wireless Internet service provider, which usually means satellite, cellular, or something very similar to cellular. These tend to have horrible pings compared to DSL or cable and single digit GB/mo caps.

In my case I am permitted about 90GB/mo, I get 2 Mbps down, and a ping to yahoo:) is about 140ms. This is supposedly some kind of CDMA technology. I have a static IP and the device bridges so my router appears to be my border, which is nice anyway. Before, I was using 802.11b to my WISP, with a routerboard I had to pay for. I still have it, and maybe someday it will be part of a long-haul link for me. I also have a buffalo router and two WRT54GS units running tomato... but again, I've got nobody to hit wit

They are creating buzz about their game. Its free marketing, and marketing is one of the areas that indies do not have a lot of money to fund.

I am positive that many people will download it for free and never even consider paying for it. However, I am just as sure that another large group of people will download it, try it, like it, and go and buy the version without pirate hats. (I am assuming that they have something in game or in the downloaded files that tells the end-user how to get a legit copy.)

I even expect that there will even be a small amount of people that will give money to the developer just for offering their game like this. Reasons for this will be because they legitimize p2p, to encourage more devs to go this route, or even just to give a big FU to companies like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft that think that DRM is the only way to succeed.

In the end, I would wager that they will make more money on this game by letting people download it for free than if they tried to actual remove their game from filesharing sites. (not that it is ever possible to completely remove a file from the internet.)

Yes, this is really the key to a succesful indie game. It's about getting buzz around your release. You can absolutely guarantee that because this has been posted on Slashdot some people on Slashdot will now go and buy it who never otherwise would.

But also, because the media is so lazy and they just recycle other people's stories you can also guarantee that because at least one site has now covered it, the others will follow suit and cover it too - so the combined effect is all these extra sites covering it

(I am assuming that they have something in game or in the downloaded files that tells the end-user how to get a legit copy.)

They posted a torrent of their own product for the express purpose of free peer-to-peer download and redistribution. Please explain how downloading it for free and enjoying the free "pirate" version it is not a legit copy?

I'm half-tempted to steal their marketing gimmick just from hearing about this. Or I would be, if I had downloadable software. There's no real sensible way to torrent a browser game, so I'm out of luck.

"As far as I know, this build is probably worse than the original, since it's uploaded by the developers themselves, and you don't have an option to turn it into a 1:1 copy of the retail version. So, good try tinyz, but we like to get what money would get us, not what the devs want us to get for free. Just wait for the retail version to get uploaded. "

You can't negotiate with criminals, its not because its too expensive, its not because it doesn't h

Furthermore, the comment about "you don't have an option..." seems to indicate that what the commenter is objecting to is that the version is irredeemably "broken" (that is, that there is no quick patch to fix the modifications made), which seems to be to be an egregious error. If you're going to try to get people to pay for your game, don't put out an unfixable, broken version that would force them to redownload the entire game if they wanted to play the "proper" version.

even if his mum did it, it wouldnt be to waste on extremely overpriced mass manufactured SHIT that the companies are putting into market to suck people off of their money.

You seem to have a serious "everything has been done before... and better" bug up your ass given your posting history, which is fine. If you don't like anything made in the last decade don't buy it and don't pirate it. But you'd do well to lose the "I don't like it and that means it's SHIT and you don't like SHIT do you?" attitude, it's just as obnoxious when it's artsy types saying all mainstream music and film sucks, gourmet chefs bashing fast food even though people obviously like the taste or grumpy old

Hate to break it to you... but all mainstream music and film does suck, fast food is disgusting at best, unhealthy at worse, and there hasn't been more than a handful of games released in the last ten years that I've bothered to keep installed after playing through once.:P

Hate to break it to you... but all mainstream music and film does suck, fast food is disgusting at best, unhealthy at worse, and there hasn't been more than a handful of games released in the last ten years that I've bothered to keep installed after playing through once.:P

Blasphemer!

Talk like that is unpatriotic.

You must be one of those commie reds my intelligent design teacher was telling me about.

Even then, who am I to judge them if it makes them happy? They could eat a steady diet of lettuce leaves for the next 80 years and die miserable, or they could eat what they like for 40 years and die happy. Is the end goal to live a happy life or a long life? I know it's not that black and white, there are all kinds of other considerations like poor health, strain on the public purse, etc. I guess my real point is maybe it's better to educate people about what's better rather than outright bash what they li

Even then, who am I to judge them if it makes them happy? They could eat a steady diet of lettuce leaves for the next 80 years and die miserable, or they could eat what they like for 40 years and die happy. Is the end goal to live a happy life or a long life? I know it's not that black and white, there are all kinds of other considerations like poor health, strain on the public purse, etc. I guess my real point is maybe it's better to educate people about what's better rather than outright bash what they like (they're far more likely to listen if they think you're not looking down on their choices).

The arguments are real, I agree that it is better to educate people. Notice that that is never done by the US administration, or big media. Lobbyists and big media make a lot of money seeing to that.

As for strain on the public purse, in the US the health care system is out to make money.

I like fast food, too much alcohol, cigarettes and cocaine*. I work harder in my job than just about everyone at my workplace. I've had 3 days off sick in 5 years, and 2 of them were when I was determined to come in with flu and got sent home.

The government trying to tell me what to eat, what to drink, what to smoke, and what to sniff is fucking absurd when I'm paying for them.

*I don't do cocaine any more, since I got caught. I switched to mephedrone, which was good, then illegal. I've switched to M

It's a computer game sold as a download - clearly it is not "mass manufactured" unless I'm a manufacturing tycoon every time I run "cp -r".

Overpriced is impossible to judge since I have no idea what their costs were or how much time they spent on it or what you judge is a fair wage for that time. But it is less than the tip on my "It's Friday, stuff cooking let's go to the Chinese place" dinner. It's about what pay the government in income taxes each hour I work.

Plenty of mainstream music and film is good. It's all too easy to claim everything is shit, but you're wrong if you do.

I started driving for a living about 4 years ago (I'm 33). Prior to that, I was basically into indie and happy hardcore, with little in between. I've been forced to listen to the radio in the UK. Radio 1 is ok, and sometimes great - they push some good new bands. XFM is decent too. Kiss is mass marketed lowest common denominator, but sometimes kick in somethin

They played other types of game, or engaged with their peers in other related ways (sports, drinking, RPGs, music, etc). If all your peers are playing games then there is a strong imperative for you to play games - that can be broken but it's going against basic human programming.

The people who make such lame music these days that I don't even want to pirate it, that's who. That basically leaves me with one Wierd Al disc every few years, though I do buy used CDs from time to time.

When I download music, it's mostly from JASRAC artists, and a bit of whatever Germany's group is. (I love me some Eisbrescher.)

I like Eisbrecher ("Icebreaker") a little (I don't have any of their music, it's a bit too rock/metally but if they play in London I'll go and watch). Until August 2010 they were with independent labels (in August 2010 they signed with Sony, but don't seem to have released anything yet). So, what justifies you copying their music?

Because I have yet to find their music for sale here in the USA on a store shelf. If I do, it will be an immediate purchase. Physical CD copies only, please, I don't buy "music store" MP3s, nor do I do mail order.

I don't buy MP3s, but I do buy via mail order.

It's difficult enough to find shops selling industrial music in the UK, so I can believe it's just as difficult in the USA. I'm not old enough to know about the "old days", I first went in a music store in about 2000, but what I understand used to be the large music stores now dedicate most of their floor space to films and video games. Last time I looked round the UK's main HMV store on Oxford Street, London, it had a single 1m-wide shelf for "Electronic synt

I dunno, I'm actually half-tempted to buy this game because they're taking the inevitability of piracy, and getting a little bit of humour out of it.
That and, unlike the two companies you've mentioned, the developers of this game are not actively prosecuting pirates. If anything, they're rewarding you for pirating... if you like pirate-themed games.

Then pay, you cheap bastard. At least this way you can try the "fake" pirate one and if you like it then buy the non-pirate hat version. But it seems you just want everyone to do everything for you for free. Why don't you write your own damned game in that case, and we can all rip YOU off? This is a smart, sensible business model and I wish the devs the best.

How is this any different from RIAA or MPAA uploading fake torrents of their music and movies to make it more difficult for people to find what they want? They are doing exactly the same - polluting torrent sites by uploading fake content. I want the real game, not some fake pirate themed one.

The difference is the RI/MPAA is doing it to collect for IPs for their all-lawsuit business model. These people are doing it with the realization that a certain number of people are going to pirate it no matter what so they may as well make a joke out of it. I haven't downloaded the game but it sounds like it's otherwise the same as the original, commercial version save graphics.

Having a sense of humor about it seems to be a good thing if these types of stories are anything to go by.=Smidge=

True, nothing in what they've done stops people uploading the real thing to TPB, they're just hoping that by not acting like douches about the whole thing, folk might be willing to throw some money their way. Even though it's clearly a clever bit of marketing, I can't feel badly towards them for it.

The pirated version of the game a buggy as hell, and everyone is pirate themed, which I have a feeling is intended.

Who knows? It might be the original that's buggy and the torrent shows quite how badly written it is.
(in fact, nowhere does it mention that the pirated game has extra bugs, so it's likely that this is true)

It would be unusual for a torrented game to be worse and more freedom-restricting than actually paying for it.

Ok,ok. It's not that I'm suggesting this new idea is a bad one; just that it is a novelty and I can't see it being profitable for EA to put pirate hats on all of the Sims.

Though, maybe only every 20-30 seconds. Bonus points if it fits well with the music too. I guess that the negative stigma attached has probably discouraged many potential Pirate Remixes over the years, and it's time for that to change.

No, you've just been brainwashed into spouting that response. Let's face it, whether you agree with file sharing or not, there are far, far worse actual, real crimes happening out there in the real world. If you really think someone who downloads a piece of software without paying for it is worse than, or even comparable to a murderer, for instance then your moral compass is definitely broken. Remember, despite the cute marketing job the **AAs are doing, digital piracy doesn't actually equate to real life p

4) Plus, pirate hats actually make things better. So yet again the pirates get the best version:) Seriously though, they seem like they've got the right approach and there are some nice incentives to buy (you get "series 2" free apparently). I think it's a pretty clever way to get a demo of your game out there and talked about, I wish more developers took the playful approach rather than the "let's punish legitimate users with horrible DRM and still see pirate copies in circulation two days after launch" a

So how often does one seeking an account need to ping some page on demonoid.com to see when an open membership drive has begun? Or with whom does one need to social network in order to find an existing member?

Thanks anyway. But I didn't need one immediately; I just wanted to know how to get one come the time that I do need one. Besides, posting an invite code on a public forum invites someone else to pounce on it first.

I pre-purchased the game as an "early investor" when they were raising money on Kickstarter.com, and even the final release was a bit buggy. Although they have been patching it, there are some lingering issues. Funny game, and not easy (not Super Meat Boy level, but still..)